(Closed) Coming off Birth Control??

I’m trying to determine what form of birth control my Fiance and I will be using after the wedding. I’m currently on the pill right now, but am considering doing NFP (Sympto-Thermal Method). I want to be prepared for what to expect once I get off the pill. What side effects are there? I’ve heard some people gain a lot of weight (not good right before the wedding!!), but others say they’ve lost weight. I’ve also heard it can effect your skin and acne…

My biggest concern is if I’m off the pill and using NFP, I may either be on my period, or fertile during my wedding which is not good. Has anyone had to deal with this? Any advice would be EXTREMELY helpful!

Congrats for considering NFP! (I just don’t think that gets said enough) FI & I are getting trained on charting the Billings Ovulation Method, but in practice, we’re going Sympto-Thermal, too. First, when I got off the pill, my cramps came back (didn’t really have them on the pill), but on the plus side, natural lubrication was MUCH better & I could feel changes in my body better. Additionally, while I neither gained nor lost any significant weight right away, I found that my metabolism (or something) was much faster…when I put in the effort to lose weight, I lost almost immediately, which wasn’t the case while on the pill.

Second, you mentioned your fear of being fertile or on your period when your wedding comes around. IMHO, you won’t really know until right around that time anyway, mostly because the stress of prepping for the wedding will affect your cycle. But, by charting & taking your temp & learning the signs of your body, you’ll be aware of where you are in your cycle when your wedding rolls around. If you DO happen to be fertile at the time of the wedding & you & your FI want to postpone pregnancy, you can always use a barrier (like a condom) for those few days (it won’t be all that long) & then eliminate the barrier when you’re past ovulation (this is what Toni Weschler, author of Taking Charge of your Fertility, the “definitive” book on Sympto-Thermal, recommends). Hopefully your FI is open to using a barrier for those few days after your months or years of taking BCP. If he isn’t, then maybe you should wait until after your wedding to start…whatever fits you both best.

Congratulations on deciding to start NFP! My husband and I practiced the sympto-thermal method successfully for months (before our planned pregnancy), and I noticed such a difference being on a non-hormonal, natural form of bc.

My suggestion is to go off your bc and start practicing NFP well before your wedding (4-6 months before). You’ll need at least a few months practice with your NFP method before you’ll be able to accurately tell your fertile periods. Also, your cycle could still be affected by the pill even a couple months after you’ve stopped taking it, so going off early will allow you more time to regulate naturally. Plus, if you go off the pill long before your wedding, you won’t have to worry about any possible side effects.

Good luck in starting NFP! I hope you have a great experience with it!

I’ve considered wiating to get off my pill until after the wedding so I don’t have to worry about the timing, but I know it can take a few months to really know how to chart your cycle and we don’t want to get pregnant right away. We’ve already discussed obstaining from sex for 6 months before the wedding, so while I’m just getting off the pill and becoming familiar with my cycle we won’t have any OOPS!! Another concern I have is my bodies reaction to stress and hormone and how to chart that. I get REALLY bad PMS, not physical issues, but emotionally I’m a wreck. I’m afraid that could be even worse off the pill, but maybe I’m wrong. And with all the stress that I will be under right before the wedding I’m afraid I’ll misread my charts or something.

Stress can definitely affect your cycle. Would you be opposed to using a barrier method, like Ms. Pascua suggested, during the honeymoon? That way you wouldn’t have to worry about misreading your charts or if stress is affecting your fertile periods.

I wouldn’t be opposed to it, but of course it would put a damper on the honeymoon. My fiance is the most wonderful person ever and is so understanding about all of this. He said our method of BC is ultimately up to me, as it is my body that is effected by any form. We also currently use condoms (we are VERY cautious not to have a pregnancy before we’re married) so I suppose a few more days wouldn’t hurt. We were really looking forward to never using them again though. I suppose sacrifices are made in marriages though right 😀

Are there any options if I were to be on my period during the wedding – I don’t think either of us would want to have sex while I’m bleeding (sorry if it’s TMI!)

Whenever you decide to go off the pill, know that the first few months of charting can be a little confusing because of the residual hormones making the temperature and mucus signs misbehave. I use STM and the first two months off of hormonal birth control my temperature stayed high for the entire cycle and it also made the mucus sign a little strange. By Month 3 my temperatures were cycling as they were supposed to and the mucus sign was quite clear. There are special rules and advice about how to do STM when you first get off the pill. Do check out Taking Charge of Your Fertility.

If you have decided to abstain from intercourse for 6 months leading up to the wedding, that’s probably the ideal time to quit taking your hormonal birth control. Trust me, it will be an extra incentive to keep your commitment, and it will allow you to get a handle on STM without worrying about possible pregnancy. Or if you wait until after the wedding, use a barrier method as backup while you’re learning. You’ll be comfortable with it sooner than you think! I felt good about it after about 3 or 4 months of charting. Now, more than a year later, I can do it with my eyes closed.

You might also want to check out the book Fertility, Cycles, and Nutrition, by Marilyn Shannon (4th edition). The book addresses how your diet and vitamins affect your menstrual cycle, with targeted suggestions for dealing with PMS, PCOS, infertility, cycle irregularities…. I have this book and have implemented some of her suggestions. They improved my energy levels a lot and made my PMS much more manageable. Going off birth control can make your skin misbehave and your emotions feel weird, but after a few months of adjustment you’ll probably feel back to your old self. Just like there’s a period of adjustment to get on birth control, there’s one to get off too. Stress can affect your cycle, so the proximity of the wedding could have an impact, so I would say start earlier rather than later. Good luck! Feel free to pm me if you have more specific questions.

I’ve heard of some different non-bc ways to alter your cycles, but I wouldn’t trust them enough even to repost them in this thread. 🙂 You can always ask your OBGYN at your next appointment, but unfortuantely a period during your wedding might just be something you would have to live with.

Thank you everyone for all your advice – this is such a HUGE decision and I want to make sure I’m fully informed before I go off my pill (if that’s what I decide to do).

I know with the STM you are suppose to take your temp the same time every day – I usually sleep in on the weekends, our teacher suggested setting an alarm even on the weekends. Is that what those that have used this method does?

It’s so nice to hear positive feedback on NFP – every time I mention it to my family or friends they look at me like I’m crazy! My mom told me that she hopes I don’t become the next 18 Kids and Counting 😀

Hmm. Well my $0.02 would be if you’re worried about getting pregnant until after your honeymoon, and you don’t want to have to worry about your period during the wedding, it really sounds like staying on the pill until after your honeymoon may be the best route to go? You wouldn’t need to use a barrier on your wedding night or during your h-moon, but you could go off the pill right after you get back from your honeymoon and go back to using barriers maybe with spermacide or something until you’re used to NFP? I don’t really mean to push the pill, but it sounds like it might be your best option because it’s going to give you everything you want for your wedding and honeymoon, and then you can worry about all the stuff afterward later.

If you do decide to switch things up before your wedding and go off the pill or use a different method, I think doing it well in advance is the best way to go. Make sure you give yourself at least 6 months, like chelseamorning said!

Good luck, Tisty1982! The good news is that LOTS of people successfully use some form of NFP both to avoid conception and while trying to conceive. Users on internet baby boards like The Bump swear by Taking Control of Your Fertility, and STM is becoming really popular becuase it’s a green, natural form of bc. I’m sure your family will come around once they see how much happier you are are off the hormonal pill. 🙂

On weekends, I also like to sleep in a few extra hours. But really, if you get a digital thermometer, you hardly even have to wake-up to temp. The alarm goes off, and without even opening my eyes, I grab the thermometer from my bedside table, put it in my mouth, and push the button. A minute later it beeps and I take it out, write down the numbers real quick, and I’m back to sleep in no time. Easy peasy!

I’m so grateful for everyone’s information – I’m really getting excited about doing NFP now! I think it will also be a really fantastic tool for when we DO decide it’s time to have a baby – since we will be so familiar with my cycle, hopefully getting pregnant will be a lot faster. While we don’t want kids right away, when the time comes (possibly even just a few months after being married) I will hopefully get pregnant right away 😀

Regarding taking your temperature on the weekends – I own a digital basal thermometer called the Petite Sophia, and it has a built-in alarm that is loud enough to wake me if I leave it on my bedside table, but not loud enough to wake DH. It goes off, I stick the thermometer in my mouth, I fall back asleep, it beeps again 5 minutes later, I take it out, and I go right back to sleep. I thought it would be a big deal but honestly it is so second nature that I barely even wake up.

The Petite Sophia is pricey but it is great because it has software that uses the same charting method to record where you are in your cycle. I use it as confirmation of what I see on my paper chart because sometimes I have a bit of trouble figuring it out entirely on my own.

I recently stopped taking the pill in October. I started when I was 18 and I’m now 28. 10 years of BC,constantly.LOL

My first period came in November. It was a DOOZEY. I had cramps, BAD cramps, I couldn’t even sleep! With BC, a cramp was like a pinch compared to these. The bleeding was MAJOR. May be TMI,but—I swear I used ultra tampons for 2 days of it and within 4 hours, they were full. I never knew it could be this hardcore. I didn’t remember my periods before BC, so I didn’t k now what to expect. I think I got used to the pill period.LOL

I chart right now, because I want to be ready when we do TTC. I’m not the best at it, but I’m trying.LOL